Just think, the GAZ-3302 car, simply called the Gazelle, entered mass production in 1994. This figure causes rather mixed feelings, on the one hand, twenty years have already passed, and on the other hand, it feels like it has always been.
Without it, it is even impossible to imagine our roads, this car has become so firmly established in our lives. How timely it appeared, and what a successful, long-empty niche in the cargo transportation market it filled with itself.
It looks like a car GAZ-3302
Probably, we can say that the creation of just such a car as the GAZ 3302 was the most successful development in the history of automotive production throughout the post-Soviet space. This small, nimble and maneuverable and unusually hardworking truck is popular not only in the Russian Federation, but also in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and so on throughout the list.
This mini-truck cannot yet claim the right to be legendary, after all, not much time has passed, but the overwhelming popularity and demand in various fields of human activity make it possible to believe that such a time will come that it will be possible to say that “Gazelle ”is the legend of our roads.
legendary gazelle
And then we, of course, remember that the future legend, in fact, was just a reaction to the demands of the market, and it began on July 20, 1994, when the production of the first Gazelles GAZ-3302 began.
Similar production, albeit not reproducing the entire cycle, was carried out at several other enterprises. Some were even located outside of Russia, but the production there was incomplete, that is, from components and parts produced at GAZ, but the main production continued to remain in Nizhny Novgorod.
This car belongs to the category of H1 (M1) cars, these are cars weighing no more than three and a half thousand kilograms, which makes it possible not to classify it as a truck, according to the official version, and this, in turn, allows you to drive by them to drivers with category “B” open to them. 
Except when it comes to minibuses based on the Gazelle. It is impossible not to note the successful marketing move of the creators of the car, since driving it is, in fact, the same as driving a passenger car, only with the load capacity of a truck.
Features of the device and operation
A common feature of all modifications created on the basis of the GAZ-3302 are:
- half-bonnet type layout;
- the size of the wheeled platform is 2.9 meters;
- frame with spars;
- dependent type suspension, by means of springs for both axles;
- steering with a screw-ball nut assembly.
Also, the braking devices involved in all models of cars, in front, are a disk-type device, and in the rear, a drum-type device.
Technical characteristics of the GAZ-3302 engine
The engine installed on these cars is a product of the production of the Zavolzhsky Motor Plant of several modifications. Let's briefly consider them: the ZMZ 4025.10 engine, its power is 90 horsepower, the ZMZ 4026.10 with a power of 100 horsepower, this engine is designed for type 92 gasoline, while the first modification of the engine is designed for A-76 gasoline.
The working volume of both engines is 2.4 liters, traditional for GAZ cars.
But for some time now, for a certain number of modifications of cars, they began to install power units of a new type, more modern, as a result, superior to traditional ones in many respects. In particular, they consume less fuel and are more environmentally friendly.
These are ZMZ 4061.10 and ZMZ 4063.10 type engines.
Engine diagram 4061.10
They have a slightly smaller working volume - this is 2.24 liters, and somewhat more power, 100 and 110 horsepower, respectively. The type of fuel they run on is 76 and 92, respectively.
Starting in 1998, a new type of engine, a turbocharged M14TS, running on diesel fuel and produced under an Austrian license, began to be installed on the Gazelle. The power of this engine is 95 "horses", the volume is 2.13 liters.
The highest regulated speed of the GAZ 3302 model of the basic type is one hundred and fifteen kilometers per hour, fuel consumption per hundred kilometers at an average speed of sixty kilometers per hour is eleven and a half liters.
Engine for GAZ 3302
The standard basic model is a flatbed truck with a cab made of solid metal, having three seats, two doors, the cabin has a heating system, a heating system with front glass blowing, ventilation, noise reduction, heat insulation systems.
Modifications of the "Gazelle"
One of the representatives of the numerous Gazelle family, GAZ 33021, just like the base model, belongs to on-board trucks. This is one of the most.
airborne gazelle
An example of a GAZ-2705 car
This model has a body made of solid metal. Its carrying capacity is one thousand three hundred and fifty kilograms, with two passenger seats as standard.
The possibility of its use as a truck is somewhat limited by the size of a metal van. And its dimensions, by the way, are a width of almost two meters, a height of two meters and twenty centimeters. With a total length of the car five and a half meters.
Minibuses GAZ-3221 and GAZ-3221 32
The next modification is the very case when the driver's category "B" is no longer enough to drive this car. We are talking about the GAZ-3221 minibus, with a capacity of thirteen passenger seats, serial production began in 1996.
minibus GAZ-3221
By 2003, when the position of this minibus on the roads was already quite confident and familiar to passengers, there were quite serious measures aimed at increasing the level of car comfort. The ventilation system in the cabin and the heating system were optimized.
And two years later, the car got an anti-lock system.
There is an even more comfortable modification, which has higher seats and a high roof, allowing a person taller than average to walk through the cabin.
And since 1996, a modification of the minibus has appeared, which has four-wheel drive and double tires on the rear axle, which added confidence to the model in driving over rough terrain and on dirt roads.
This is a development based on the minibus of the previous model, mass production, which began in 1996. This is a modification designed specifically to work in urban conditions, in the mode of a fixed-route taxi. The well-known and easily recognizable "minibuses" are equipped with three doors, two of which are located on the cab, the third folding door opens access to the cabin.
Salon compared to the previous model is more reinforced, more comfortable, largely due to the higher ceiling, comfortable seats. 
Used in the city, it had twelve passenger seats, its analogue with ten seats for passengers worked in suburban areas, and a variant for intercity passenger transportation was developed a little later, which was equipped with eighteen seats.
Even later, on the basis of the Gazelle, the SemAR model was developed and put into mass production, which was used not only for passenger transportation, but also as an ambulance, as a refrigerator, and cases of its use in a rather specific quality of a hearse were quite common.
Competition and prospects
For some time now, the positions of the Gazelle, which seemed completely unshakable during the nineties, were pushed aside by its foreign-made counterparts. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Ford, Renault, Fiat, Mercedes and others like the domestic truck and minibus have poured into the market.
Some of the cars listed even belong to those that are assembled in the Russian Federation. We are talking, of course, about the so-called "screwdriver production". But, since competition for market relations is a completely natural and unremarkable phenomenon, Gazelle continues to compete, yielding in some ways, ahead in others.
New modification of the Gazelle
The technical characteristics of the Gazelle continue to remain at the level. There are statistics showing that the share of passenger traffic attributable to the share of "Gazelle" was about 50% in the Russian market.